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/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> What have these eleven countries in common – Finland, Norway, Canada, Japan, Poland, Turkey, Australia and, to a lesser extent, the US, Russia, Sweden and Denmark? They have not put themselves through the economic purge and their economies are growing at a reasonable rate. Not for them savage cuts in social services and public investment combined with lower wages. They have kept their economies purring. They are pro-Keynesian – a policy attributed to John Maynard Keynes, the most brilliant economist of the last century, in an age when there were many brilliant economists, both of the left, the middle and the right.

While the headline deals with the Presidential candidates, Falk reflects also on the essence of democracy itself and on whether the US can at all be called a democracy. The American electorate is facing a presidential election in which there is almost no prospect of a constructive debate. On the Republican side the campaign for the nomination has exhibited the clash of irresponsible and reactionary views, slightly relieved by the libertarian Ron Paul who at least counsel against militarism and the death dance with Israel. All the Republican presidential hopefuls, except Paul, exhibit a craven distaste for reality when they attack Obama for being insufficiently pro-Israeli, as if 95%+ is insufficient. Such a posture, whether meant seriously or not, expresses contempt for the intelligence and common sense of the American citizenry.

From Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia-UNED, Foro Los Nuevos Problemas Sociales Here is one of the hidden faces of the economic crisis: (¶C/¶t) + (¶C/¶S)rS + (1/2)(¶2C/¶S2)q2S2 = rC The famous Black-Scholes equation to find the “correct price” for financial derivatives. Based on partial derivatives over time, this is classical calculus for continuous change; useful within a zone of stability, but not at the edge of that zone, the tipping points explored in René Thom’s catastrophe theory years earlier. Black-Scholes is intellectually like calculating increasing speed of an accelerating car heading for a wall or an abyss. But, with warnings, no 1997 “Nobel Prize in Economics” (actually a Swedish State Bank’s prize honoring Alfred Nobel)? And one year later their company “Long Term Capital Management” had lost $100 billion and collapsed. The trade in derivatives is now at $1 quadrillion a year (15 zeros), ten times the industrial...

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> Approximately half the people of Africa own a mobile phone. In many African countries phone technology is ahead of Europe and North America. Money can be transferred from the city to an upcountry village. Bills can be paid. In Ghana farmers can receive text messages reporting the price of yams and corn two towns away and thus find the best market without a middleman. In Kenya residents of small villages can receive texts to say when the perambulating doctor will next be coming. In parts of West Africa nurses are storing patients’ data on phones. It may be more difficult to build up fast internet penetration on pcs but in some countries 40% of mobile owners are using phones for email and the internet. The IMF says that the telecommunication sector is adding 2% to Nigeria’s already handsome annual economic growth. Black Africa has come late to the party...

Politically Nigeria has been extraordinarily lucky in its political leadership the last thirteen years. Under dictator Sani Abacha opposition was routed and its leaders imprisoned, tortured and murdered, the press was neutered and the treasury looted for personal gain. It only ended when Abacha suffered a heart attack in bed in the company of three prostitutes. Then one of his most vociferous opponents, Olusegun Obasanjo, who had spent three years in a primitive prison, won the first post-Abacha election.

In The Fall of the US Empire-And Then What?[i] a subtitle is US Fascism or US Blossoming? Of blossoming there seems to be none, with the Dow Jones crossing the 13,000 border, the real economy still mostly in bad shape, the Republican candidates embracing the economic system that produced the crisis, and Obama running the progressive rhetoric trick that brought him into power in 2008. By midterm 2010 the bluff was called, with a landslide. The OWS, Occupy Wall Street, is in the first three stages, consciousness-formation, mobilization and some confrontation; but not yet in the real struggle with massive nonviolent practice of alternatives. Fascism? There is a domestic and a global variety and the latter is Obama’s foreign policy, with domestic elements.

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> Did you know that Nigeria, the most populated country in black Africa, is now one of the top five fastest growing big economies in the world? (The others are China, India, Turkey and Argentina.) The image of Nigeria is of poverty, crime, corruption, election fiddling and maladministration. Africa, I find from my family and friends, is still a continent where death stalks – war, starving children and impoverished refugees. But the tale of progress is unsung. This wretchedness is the only news that penetrates. Only one western newspaper, the Financial Times, has a full time correspondent in Nigeria where one third of all the black people in the world live. The rest get their news from the fickle eye of television and the rest of the newspaper pack.

 From Kyoto, Japan: A grey, cold Sunday morning, fitting the sad theme. The Japan Times, an excellent middle wing newspaper, came in the middle of the night, with four typical stories, for a starter. We approach the 3/11 anniversary. The earthquake struck on 11 March 2011, followed by the tsunami and the near meltdown of Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant. On 11 March 2004, terrorism struck the Atocha train station in Madrid. A bad date; may inspire somebody. We read: “Worker at No. 1 nuke plant died from ‘overwork’. He was dispatched by a subcontractor, a construction firm based in Shizuoka, and started working at Fukushima No. 1 on May 13. On his first day he engaged in piping and other work in a waste disposal facility at the complex, but complained of not feeling well the following morning. He was immediately taken to a hospital and died shortly afterwards–radiation...

By David R. Loy Buddhist Reflections on Occupy Wall Street In a Buddhist blog about Occupy Wall Street, Michael Stone quotes the philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who spoke to the New York Occupiers at Zuccotti Park on October 9, 2011: “They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down!” As...

What are the three credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch – 95 percent of the rating “industry” – about? Not very transparent, yet “Standard & Poor’s: silent but deadly” (El País, 16 Jan 2012), stimulates some reflections. The agencies are US, which goes well with the tendency of the USA to sit in judgment of other countries. It also goes well with something more dangerous: the tendency of other countries to take that judgment seriously. The new prime minister of Spain said he needed no lecturing (from the agencies) on the Spanish economy; but the downgrading shook Spain. Why does Europe not have its own agencies, rating all 50 US states, for instance, like US agencies rate EU members?

From Alfàz del Pi, Spain We are heading for a new load of advice from the self-appointed “World Economic Forum”, still having fresh in mind their utter inability to come to grips with the September 2008 manifestation of the world economic crisis when they met three years ago. So, what are they going to talk about now? Lee Howell, in “The failure of governance in a hyperconnected world”, International Herald Tribune, 11 Jan 2012, gives us a preview.

2011 was an exciting and pivotal year in many respects, although its main outcomes will remain inconclusive for years to come.  We will learn in 2012 whether we are moving closer to fulfilling our hopes, dreams, and goals or are trying to interpret and overcome a recurrence of disappointment and demoralization with respect to progressive change in world affairs. The stakes for some societies, and for humanity, have rarely been higher.